CIOs look to outsource Enterprise Mobile Development

Mobile app development remains one of the hottest areas within the technology world. Users increasingly prefer using their smartphones and tablets for a wide variety of purposes, both personal and business related. Organizations building apps with an eye towards reaching this audience are increasingly looking to outsource this work instead of engaging their internal development teams.

Why don’t CIOs trust their own programming staff when it comes to mobile apps? Is a skills gap leading to a desire to outsource their solution needs? On the other hand, if your company specializes in this area of software development, business opportunities abound, provided your team delivers a quality app.

Study reveals the Distrust Executives hold for Internal Mobile Development

A recent study by mobile development platform provider, Kony, reported on in Application Development Trends Magazine, took a look at CIO attitudes towards mobile app development. In addition to a skills gap with mobile programming technology, executives also worry about limited development budgets and cybersecurity. The Kony survey reached out to over one-thousand CIOs and business executives.

According to the survey, the demand for new mobile apps as well as new features in existing apps remains large. 97 percent of the survey respondents reported either individual employees or divisions within their organizations requested new applications or enhancements. Improving collaboration and productivity were the two biggest reasons behind these requests.

As noted earlier, the lack of internal mobile development talent and/or budgetary concerns are the primary reasons CIOs look towards third-party providers for their mobile application needs. 65 percent of the surveyed executives whose companies currently build mobile apps in-house are dissatisfied with the overall results. They report poor user experiences as well as difficulty in managing the software development process.

A Business Opportunity for Third-Party Mobile App Vendors

This dissatisfaction has created an opportunity for companies specializing in mobile application development. 81 percent of the survey respondents noted a preference for engaging third-party vendors for their mobile programming needs. Of the 73 percent that have worked with external mobile app vendors, 96 percent of those reported problems with the development process, including cost issues and the difficulty in app customization.

92 percent of the CIOs who went the external vendor route feel their published apps aren’t meeting expectations. Some of the issues include poor performance, substandard customer service, and lower employee productivity. 82 percent of those respondents actually ended up abandoning an app after its release, with lack of adoption being a leading reason why, in addition to performance issues.

While business opportunities for mobile app vendors are on the upswing, the survey results are still cause for concern. Mobile software shops need to work on properly setting customer expectations, in addition to focusing their development efforts on building compelling user experiences with top notch app performance. Still, companies of all sizes will continue to outsource their development needs so they are able to focus more on internal business operations.

In the end, “current IT departments simply lack the skills necessary to manage new and emerging technologies, all with limited budgets and resources,” the survey concluded.

Keep coming back to the Betica Blog for additional dispatches from the wide world of software development. As always, thanks for reading.